When two alleged drug kingpins disappear after a $5-million-dollar bounty is put on their heads by the US, it's usually difficult to track them down. But journalists were still able to.

Daniel and Christy Kinahan, a father-and-son duo, were alleged leaders of one of the world's largest cartels, smuggling drugs, arms and money across the globe. But since their disappearance in 2022 and an unsuccessful manhunt, no one was able to find them -- until journalists started using open source tools.

The investigative collective Bellingcat, working in partnership with the Sunday Times, uploaded photos of the Kinahans into the PimEyes search engine, which then performed a vast search of the Kinahans' faces on the internet. Search results gave them a professional photo of Daniel taken at an MMA fight in Dubai in 2025.

Bellingcat then scraped the internet for more evidence of that day. They found a six-hour video of the fight where both of the Kinahans were watching in the background, all while they were supposedly keeping a low profile.

Using social media, Bellingcat cross-referenced certain features from the Kinahans in the fight video to make sure it was them. For example, Christy was wearing a Panama hat in the video, a hat they verified was featured many times on his social media. Bellingcat also showed the footage and photos to people familiar with the Kinahans, who confirmed their identity.

A previous investigation of the Kinahans in 2024 had found them acting with impunity. Bellingcat was able to track Christy's whereabouts using his own Google reviews of favorite restaurants in Dubai, which he posted despite his status as a wanted man.

These reviews were verified through Christy's email, and through the photos he took of the restaurants. Christy himself was in some of these photos blurred in a reflection of a window or a mirror.

These methods of finding people are untraditional, but in open source investigative journalism, untraditional is the name of the game. Journalists must scour and scavenge every facet of someone's potential digital footprint, whereabouts and linkages to ensure they can find every piece of information on them.

The Dubai authorities, embarrassed by the revelations, arrested Daniel Kinahan on April 15, 2026. At the time of writing, he is awaiting extradition to Ireland. His father's whereabouts are unknown.